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March 14, 2014

By Lindsay Anderson

Assistant Professor of Marketing Dr. Jennifer Burton and Bradley graduate Kristen Jensen coauthored and then presented a poster session on their research paper, “The Benefits and Drivers of Watching, Liking and Sharing Advertisements on Social Media,” at the 2014 Winter Marketing Educators Conference in Orlando, FL last month.

“A poster session,” said Burton, “tends to be younger faculty members. In our case, Kristen Jensen was the only undergraduate student presenting, which was a great accomplishment. This research experience will enable Kristen to position herself well for graduate schools and further challenges.”

The research paper examined the impact of prior social media engagement with an advertising campaign on consumers’ evaluations of television ads. The research also examined the drivers of social media interaction – from watching an ad on social media versus liking or sharing an advertisement on social media.

Jensen minored in Marketing while attending the Foster College of Business and had always been interested in the topic of social media exposure. Jensen felt social media exposure and buzz are important for companies, and this importance has been growing tremendously these past years.

“I was impacted most by the researching and writing,” Jensen said. “This was a new experience for me, and I was unfamiliar with the process of researching, like running tests on the software. When it came to the writing, Dr. Burton explained to me what needed to be included in the paper. Helping with the composition of the paper got me in a particular frame of mind – searching for existing research became really interesting. It was neat to find what research helped support our claims and to see the paper come together.”

Jensen continues, “I feel my biggest takeaways with this experience were improved analytical skills and a greater appreciation for all the hard work that goes into research.”

Jensen’s highlight of the experience would be the results, as some were surprising and not at all predictable, bringing a nice twist to the paper.

“The best moment about presenting was when I answered my first inquiry about our poster,” Jensen said. “It was exciting to be sharing something with others, and I am so lucky I got to experience it as an undergrad.”